Three very Different Girls
by MarisolM
Summary: Ever wonder how the Angels reacted when meeting for the first time??
1. Chapter 1

Angel. Hard to believe how simple and pretty that word sounded. It was written with tiny gold calligraphy on the center of a 3 by 5 postcard, instead of a nice panoramic view of the L.A. skyline - which most tourists would expect to receive.  
  
But not these girls. Oh sure, two of them used up a whole half-a-day's time in a cramped airplane from the other side of the country (and the world). All to meet some guy, willing to type a small note on a cheap- looking postcard...  
  
Dear [girl's name],  
  
You're cordially invited to  
  
attend a brief seminar on  
  
June 11, 1988 at 9 AM at  
  
505 S. Arlington Ave. (room #23)  
  
Los Angeles CA, 10528  
  
to discuss your exceptional talent.  
  
sincerely,  
  
J. Bosley  
  
ps. Please don't be late.  
  
...and not mention to the very least about what clothes to bring!  
  
"Talent." What talent? This guy really was a piece of work, his note sounding like a school notice gone fortune-cookie-style. But as strange as it may have been to get that note on an everyday afternoon, each girl followed instructions and intended to show up at that special meeting....whatever it was for.  
  
Natalie came first, naturally residing in the city and knowing each and every street by heart. She skipped towards the polished wooden door marked 23 with her brown loafers, knocked three times, and waited for an answer. The whole place seemed too quiet to be in L.A. as she looked around the office-like setting. Yeah, there where ladies typing rhythmically onto computer screens and lining up to get a shot of coffee like all Mondays, but Natalie had this whole "secret-agents-running-around-in-chaos" idea ever since she notices the sign:  
  
CHARLES TOWNSEND  
  
PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS.  
  
She tossed the idea from her bushy blonde head and stared one with the big door that faced her. "Hello?" she called in cheerfully with a last knock, then slowly turned the knob when nobody seemed to disapprove. Her overdone smile left when she came in; the office was empty.  
  
It looked civilized, though, with a matching wooden bookshelf and working desk that was all neat and tidy - as if their owner was away on a long business trip or something. After a few minutes of surveying the typical accessories of an office room, Natalie sat down on one of the couches and smoothed out her blue knee-length skirt.  
  
She checked her watch: 8:45 am.  
  
"Better too early than too late," Natalie mottoed to herself and smirked down at the coffee table between the two couches. Discovering a nice pile of wrapped caramels on her side, she remembered skipping breakfast and instantly replaced the retainer in her mouth for a throw of sugar.  
  
It was the moment she tossed the fourth candy up and caught it with her teeth that the door facing her opened again.  
  
Natalie hid the caramel in her mouth and propped up, expecting to see the writer of the note. Instead, a girl with narrow Asian eyes appeared, then a man of similar features whose black uniform resembled a cheufeur's.  
  
Her almond eyes met Natalie's sky blue, and a twist of expectations had passed through her face so fast not even Natalie (with her quick thinking) could read them all.  
  
Obviously this new girl thought she'd been the only one invited, wearing a gray business-like suit with shiny black boots that looked ridiculous on a fifteen-year old. She reminded Natalie of a younger Mary Poppins, with a tight bun holding her ink hair under a brim hat that suggested a very lengthy voyage.  
  
Unlike Natalie, she didn't smile once.  
  
The new girl breathed a sigh and turned to the man in uniform. Her whispers sounded like gibberish to Natalie but it seemed to make sense to the Asian man, since he then nodded, put down a small black suitcase next to the wall, and closed the door.  
  
"Hi!" Natalie greeted in the same bright attitude, moving out of the couch and extending a hand to the girl. The narrow eyes just stared at the scrawny fingers, as if she had never seen a handshake before. "Um...I'm Natalie," she then added, the cheeriness going down a notch.  
  
"Alex," was all the girl said in a thick accent, and moved to sit on the untouched couch. Natalie returned her hand and carefully sat down again, hoping not to miss the cushion and fall on her butt foolishly. She avoided meeting Alex's eyes, repeatedly smoothing out her skirt to hide the tension in her face.  
  
The way she sat up so straight and pompous-like only made Natalie slouch more.  
  
"So...I guess you're here for the seminar thing too?" Natalie attempted as she fiddled with a candy wrapper. She looked up at Alex and saw that she had taken her hat off, and was now scribbling something in a pocket-sized book.  
  
"Yes," she answered flatly, still focused on her writing. But she managed to show Natalie her 'Angel' postcard during a page-turn.  
  
"I have one too!" Natalie said, and took it out of her shirt pocket. Alex still didn't look up.  
  
"You wouldn't know what this seminar's for, would you? I mean, it sounds pretty exciting when you read about it. 'Exceptional Talent'.....I wonder what that means. I don't think many people get chosen for this, do you? I sure hope there's other people coming....oh! not that I'd be mad if it's just you and me--"  
  
Alex threw a sharp scowl at her, making Natalie's tongue freeze.  
  
"Oh, sorry," she gave a nervous laugh, checking her watch again: 8:55am.  
  
Cold-blooded 'Mary Poppins' crossed her legs and made a 'hmph' sound, returning to her fast scribbles.  
  
Outside in the hallway, Natalie could hear someone's footsteps approaching, which sounded more like stomps as they got closer.  
  
Please come in here! Please!, the girl begged in her mind, as the excessively quiet room and kung-fu-faced girl was all starting to creep her out.  
  
And her wish came true - with a loud bang that opened the door again, and Natalie instantaneously let out a yelp.  
  
"GOD I HATE CAB DRIVERS!!" a growling voice thundered in, which finally made Alex turn her head around shrewdly towards the door.  
  
There stood a third girl (or at least it looked like a girl, with jeans artistically slashed from the knees down and her bleached hair hung over her face) chewing what sounded like three pieces of bubble gum in her right cheek.  
  
She let her 'nicely-decorated' backpack fall on the floor next to Alex's suitcase, and walked her combat boots to the front of the couches and survey Alex and Natalie with her arms crossed.  
  
They're mouths agape, they're eyebrows raised shockingly, Natalie was the first to smile forcefully and say, "Hhh--Hi!" Alex just sat there and counted the girl's multiple ear, nose, and eyebrow piercings (11) before saying an almost mute "hello".  
  
"Well wha'dya know? It's Miss Sushi Girl and Geek-of-the-Year in the same room! Damn, where's my camera?" was the girl's friendly greet to them, and she continued to chew with her mouth open, revealing a pierced tongue.  
  
Alex's face scrunched up in disgust while the girl hopped into Natalie's couch (making her slide to the edge). "So what's up with the 'sekeratary' look, Sushi Girl?" she then smiled.  
  
"My name is Alex," came the reply, simple and reluctant.  
  
"And I'm Natalie!" entered Natalie almost too happily, and extended her hand out in a new attempt.  
  
The girl locked eyes with Natalie instead of her hand, but then reached two fingers into her mouth and took out her pink gum, placing it in the center of Natalie's opened palm. It was the size of a miniature golf ball as Natalie glanced down to it, and looked up again.  
  
"Dylan," the girl smiled.  
  
"Ewww...." Natalie scrunched her own face, staring at that giant ball of gum laying on her clean little hand, and a bunch of questions ran through her mind as she scraped it off with a candywrapper. What was this punk doing here, and how could she chew this huge piece of gum and breathe at the same time?  
  
"Disgusting." Alex remarked in a proper accent, surveying the strange girl as she craned her combat boots to rest on the coffee table, satisfied to think how well she was brought up .  
  
"Why thank you, Ko-Ni-Chi-Wah, you don't look so bad yourself!" Dylan answered in a mocking tone back at her.  
  
It seemed to push a button in Alex's sensitivity panel, because the next moment they all knew, Alex gripped the side cushions of her couch tightly and angled her frame forward to glare one with Dylan.  
  
Natalie was sure she was going to explode!  
  
"Oooo, somebody's a wittle insulted?" Dylan laughed at the ridiculous Alex stance she would pay anybody to see.  
  
"Um... I think she wants you to apologize..." came Natalie's squeaky voice.  
  
"Pshh, no way!" Dylan brushed her hair out of her face. "If we keep staring, she might do a trick!"  
  
Alex rose up from the couch in one motion, her eyes angling down at Dylan's, not blinking. She took that as a signal to get up herself, and she did, with her boots hard on the ground and a grin on her face. They walked towards the desk where the coffee table was no longer between them, each staring at the other.  
  
Natalie was so tongue-tied from the situation, she couldn't get a word in. And she hated violence!  
  
"Allrightee, let's see what ya got." As Dylan finished her sentence, she moved her arms back and forth to block out the punches Alex was bellowing in her own language. She couldn't kick thanks to her skirt, and Dylan caught that only a few seconds later to pin the crazy ninja to the far wall from a stumble by the oh so evil carpet. The girls' faces were so close to each other, Dylan actually noticed the tiny freckles almost hidden on Alex's nose.  
  
She's going to hit her, she's going to hit her.....thought Natalie, and when she felt her notions were actually coming true, she jumped out of the couch and screamed her way to the girls.  
  
"STOP IT! Dylan, let her go!!" the little peacemaker put effort into Dylan's grip as she tried to break the two up without causing another frenzy. But it wasn't Natalie that stopped the havoc from getting worse, or even continuing for that matter.  
  
It was a turning of the doorknob.  
  
As if it were made to happen, the girls quietly angled over to look at the new arrival, and toppled over to the ground with Natalie sandwiched in between.  
  
They were all hushed except for Dylan ("Get off me!") as they regained themselves, only to see a frantic-looking young man with thick glasses peering into the room. And when he saw the three girls, he gave a huge extensive sigh.  
  
"Oh good, you're all here..." he informed somewhat out of breath, entering the room in a new sense of relief.  
  
All here? Natalie caught as she scrambled back up and checked her watch: 8:59am.  
  
That was enough to convince her it was just the three of them who were invited.  
  
"Please, uh, have a seat," the man asserted plainly to the girls, like he was unaware of anything that happened since January. Alex sat down and smoothed out her skirt quickly for first impressions, Natalie carefully found her way to the other couch without breaking anything, but Dylan just stood in front of the desk where the man set himself in, looking at his watch.  
  
"Excuse me, you're..." Dylan fumbled for her folded postcard inside her jeanjacket, "...J. Bosley?"  
  
"Call me 'Boz'," the man replied good-naturedly and extended a hand to Dylan.  
  
"I'd rather not," she shook his hand once and turned for the couch, "but could you tell me why I flew ten and half hours into lame-ass Surf County, sat in a shitty cab with a guy who didn't know Left from Right, and came here to meet Kung Fu girl and her side kick, Geek-A-Zoid?"  
  
Dylan found her spot next to Natalie, crossed her legs, and looked back up to the dumbfounded man feeling a hand across his unshaved face. He was about to open his mouth, until his watch beeped 9 o'clock, and he gave a fake cough to clear his throat. He then tapped something into a beige speakerphone on the desk, and moved it forward, inquiring the girls to listen.  
  
Static.  
  
"Good morning Angels," an elderly voice came from the speaker, taking all the girls by surprise.  
  
"Good morning, Charlie!" the man responded cheerfully, and paused afterwards, noticing his mishap. Dylan fought hard not to laugh.  
  
"Well thank you, Bosley, but I was referring to our young guests," the voice came again.  
  
"Uh, yeah.....sorry boss."  
  
The girls just sat there, watching the man have a conversation with a speaker! Apparently this Bosley guy wasn't the one to answer their numerous questions; it was the mysterious god-like voice inside the speaker. This was getting too weird.  
  
Natalie and Alex exchanged the same idea that Dylan was going to repeat her question right about now, and they braced themselves....  
  
"Allow me to introduce myself, girls. My name is Dr. Charles Townsend. This is my assistant, John Bosley, who I'm sure sent the lovely invitations you all received."  
  
The man waved a nervous hand at the girls and continued to listen to the speaker.  
  
"I have called you here for many reasons, but I think it would be best if you got to know the people sitting right in front of you, first."  
  
At that cue, Bosley clicked a little remote from his hand and TV screen turned on from the other side of the room. Static. Then random video images came up like a home movie, showing depictions of young Alex, Natalie, and Dylan in order. As they showed up on screen, the voice named Charlie spoke facts about them.  
  
"Alexandra Mun Shimamura the Second. Carefully born and raised in Tokyo with her highly accredited parents, she is a well-educated young lady with knowledge far beyond her years. She has withheld numerous titles, just last summer being named the youngest national champion of the Lenox Equestrian Open in Japan."  
  
The final shot of Alex was one in an open stadium, where paparazzi surrounded her cute little smile as she sat on a beautifully tamed horse. Dylan and Natalie both glanced at her from the other couch; they'd never seen anyone look so arrogant at herself, especially with a messed up hairbun from the previous scene. The screen blackened and rebloomed, then continued...  
  
"Natalie Cookie Brewster. Growing up in the heart of Los Angeles since childhood with her younger sister and parents, she's known for her bright mind and quick thinking. Her biggest accomplishment? Winning first place at the California Junior Spelling Bee three years in a row."  
  
"I had to spell 'cretaceous', 'hyperbola', AND 'somatopleure'!" Natalie said astonishingly as she saw herself giving a bow to the contest judges.  
  
"Oh shut up," was Dylan's compliment.  
  
Natalie sighed at that and fixed her glasses, just then remembering her retainer and quickly placing it back in her mouth, making Alex look like she was going to throw up.  
  
"...Which leads us to our last guest..." the voice went on as the screen faded again to black.  
  
"Dylan Sandra Evans. Probably setting a record for the most places resided in the U.S., her last home was in the great city of Boston, Massachusetts with her two older brothers. Their mother fell victim years ago to a misapprehended hostage situation in Chicago, and since then the three have remained strong, fending for themselves however possible. In fact, Dylan made a name for herself just last Fall at her highschool, beating up many of the senior football players at an open cafeteria with her own two hands."  
  
Alex and Natalie stared in unison at Dylan, the screen showing her choreographed moves on guys twice her size before a huge crowd of teenagers, then turning off. But Dylan did not smile, or look proud at all. She actually jumped off the couch and bellowed off to the speaker...  
  
"How the hell did you get all that!?"  
  
The two other girls seemed to be understanding the point of her question. Who exactly WAS this guy behind the mysterious voice?  
  
"I'll explain that to you momentarily, Dylan. But first things first...I believe the real reason why I brought you all here today.... Perhaps in a language more familiar to your age..." The girls anxiously waited for the next words out of the speaker, which came in a rather gameshow-like tone.  
  
"How would you three like to be secret agents?"  
  
*to be continued....* 


	2. Chapter 2

"Huh?"  
  
Dylan seemed to be the only one who's heart was still beating after that question, as the three girls didn't keep their eyes off the brick-sized speakerphone for about a minute. None of them knew what to say - the whole idea seemed ridiculous, really - not even Natalie could think straight.  
  
"What the hell do you take me for?" Dylan sprayed the question at the speakerphone, throwing her hands wildly.  
  
"Now now, calm down..uh, Dylan." Bosley attempted, who was beginning to feel comfortable with his practically-invisible status in the room. Unfortunately, his interruption only provoked Dylan to yell at the box afterwards.  
  
"Secret....Agents??" That was Natalie, with a face like she'd just won the Spelling Bee for the fourth year running. It took her a few seconds to do it, but she ran to the speaker, and when her mouth was just inches away, she said "Oh thank you, mister Charlie! Sir!"  
  
"What?" Dylan turned to the scrawny blonde. "You actually BELIEVE this quack?"  
  
"Well, um, yeah!" Natalie said nervously, mostly to herself, but as she turned back to glance at Alex (who was standing up), she could have sworn she saw a grin.  
  
"You guys are insane," Dylan pushed her hair back to make her face breathe in air.  
  
"Excuse me, girls, but I'm afraid I wasn't finished." The voice said once again, and Alex almost tripped on her boots from surprise. He was still there?  
  
"Look, Mr. Voice-in-Box," Dylan approached the speaker like a new person: someone extremely fed up. "I don't know you who the hell you are - just the fact that we can't see you is creeping me out - but STAY out of my business or I'm calling the COPS!"  
  
She headed towards the door.  
  
"Well I suppose they'd be too busy investigating your records first, wouldn't they...Dylan." The elderly voice of Charlie had seemed to place emphasis on her name, and strangely enough, it made Dylan stop dead in her tracks.  
  
The bleached-haired punk slowly turned her head around, showing a great rage that almost convinced Natalie and Alex she was going to smash the speaker phone with all her might. Bosley's hands fumbled nervously behind the desk.  
  
"Are you trying to threaten me?" came her dangerously low pitch at the box. Alex shut her eyes tightly.  
  
"Not at all," the voice spoke honestly, "but please, sit down. The three of you."  
  
Natalie's face turned pale white then, and looked around the room as if lost and confused; could Charlie see them? Part of her was thinking that he was a ghost, whose only way of communicating was from that little box, but that couldn't be....  
  
Yet Alex and Natalie obeyed the voice without question. Neither of them could imagine what sort of "records" he was talking about, but they gave another glance at Dylan, and left it at that.  
  
"May I ask what it was that you meant by 'secret agents,' sir?" came Alex's clear voice as she sat, which made Dylan and Natalie turn their heads around in surprise.  
  
So, they thought, Miss Sushi Girl spoke decent, proper English after all. Go figure.  
  
"A very good subject to get into, Miss Shimamura," replied Charlie. "I must assure you that the agency I run here is top secret, and nobody except my close colleagues and now yourselves know about it."  
  
The girls opened their ears once again to the speaker, and Dylan threw a blue gumball from the pocket of her jeanjacket into her mouth for something to chew on. Alex then became very interested in her shoes.  
  
"I started this Agency over forty years ago, after my resignation from the war--" the voice began.  
  
"You fought in World War II??" Natalie asked in such cheerful amazement, Dylan thought she was going to run up to the speaker and ask for its autograph.  
  
"Well, yes Miss Brewster, I did. But that's besides the point," and so he continued.  
  
He talked about the founding of his first investigations agency in 1945, previously called Townsend and Wardall, P.I. after himself and a close friend of his who had later died in special services to Vietnam. Charlie had also been assigned in Eastern Europe as a personal aide to Central Intelligence (the youngest in record) but a severe knee injury had left him permanently disabled to continue his work.  
  
"I'm terribly sorry...." Natalie sobbed, wiping tears from her cheeks with her blouse sleeves.  
  
"Oh, I'm all right, Miss Brewster....and since then, my secret services have expanded to over forty countries and dozens of languages, and has been of special aid to the White House, the Pentagon, as well as international relations."  
  
"Well good for you!" Dylan clapped sarcastically. "But, how do we come into this?"  
  
"You've got to understand, Miss Sanders, that the people I hire for my work are bright and skillful in many ways, but they also carry the one attribute that makes them entirely unsuspicious when called for duty."  
  
"And what is that, sir?" Alex said curiously enough.  
  
"They're women."  
  
The girls blinked, exchanging glances to each other. James Bond....Superman....Captain Nemo.... Always the heroic figures were guys, Natalie thought, and of course the bad people would never ever suspect a teenage girl to fight over nuclear weapons of mass destruction and stuff. Such a simple idea, yet it made sense!  
  
And there was a knock on the door.  
  
Bosley scrambled over and opened it, and the girls watched a group of three tall, young-adult women in business suits walk in and stand next to the wall in a very synchronized manner. They had their hands at their sides, similar to a military inspection, yet very at ease.  
  
"Dylan, Alex, Natalie, meet my former Angels: Carrie Apple, Madison Lee, and Ruth Wilkins."  
  
The girls stared at the women, who nodded as their names were respectively said. They all looked to be close in age (probably in their mid-thirties) and if Madison's hair had been strawberry blonde instead of black, they could have been triplets.  
  
"They will be helping you for the next few months in every aspect there is to becoming an Angel: gadget training, computer hacking, foreign languages....and yes, Alex, kung-fu."  
  
In response, Alex smiled with her proud, glimmering almond eyes.  
  
"This work will take years of commitment, roughly ten to fifteen of them dealing with onsite assignment to numerous parts of the world. There are drawbacks, I understand, and trust me, anything can be worked on. Carrie here found a young man during her time, and thus chose to be more of the 'computer hacker' of her group to stay in touch."  
  
The blonde named Carrie then smiled at that statement, looking at the beige carpet and fighting off a giggle. Dylan couldn't tell whether this grown- up was actually more pathetic than the geek sitting right next to her, but she thought time would tell.  
  
"Being a Angel will broaden your worlds as young people on service, and you can learn a lot from it....that is, should you all accept my proposition."  
  
"I do! I do!" Natalie yelped with excitement to nobody in particular, her glasses sliding off her nose.  
  
"I shall inform my parents as soon as possible," Alex said in a negotiable manner.  
  
"Wait a sec - what about school? And where exactly am I supposed to sleep?" were Dylan's thoughts, and she looked at the three women to see if they could give her straight answers. Instead, they were observing her Dylan image with sincere interest.  
  
"I promise you, Miss Sanders, that it will all be taken care of. Since I can't tell you anything further now, I'm giving you girls the rest of this morning to think it over, and Bosley will notify me of your decision afterwards. My former Angels will lead you from here."  
  
The girls thought Charlie had hung up right then and there, but the static from the speaker had cleared up for a brief moment.  
  
"And I wanted to remind you girls that this decision must be a unanimous one between the three of you - this isn't a one-woman show, I'm telling you all right now. Until then."  
  
The speakerphone became static again, and finally disappeared altogether.  
  
It was after that statement that Madison turned her head away from the girls and looked timidly towards the speaker. Alex had noticed it first, before Dylan gazed at her direction and thought the same thing: perhaps these women had not gotten along as well as Charlie had hoped.  
  
They all looked alike, to the very least, so what could possibly have gone wrong between them? Dylan thought, as she looked at her own two potential teammates with a keen eye of judgement. One side had her dealing with a Miss-Perfect-Sushi-girl who would always find some way to show off her family history, the other had a scrawny Ugly Duckling with a flare for dumb trivia. Cleaning her brothers' messes seemed more like the wise way to go, but still, her wandering thoughts remained.  
  
Natalie could hear the tension in Charlie's voice as he made that final statement, but nevertheless, she couldn't help but smile, thinking how great it would be to work with a team. Of course, she probably would have picked more fun-looking girls than Alex and Dylan (seriously, she thought, who would give a girl that name?), maybe someone with a taste for 80s pop like she did. Oh well, if it meant learning exotic languages, nothing could be that bad.  
  
Alex was the more neutral of the three, which wasn't unusual. The girl sat straight on the couch, staring at her nails, and as she rubbed one finger over the smooth polish, she thought about home. This job seemed exciting, as if Charlie was rewarding her from all the excellent titles she'd received in her life. Yet this was strange, considering she had never been to the U.S. alone (her parents were at a press conference in London, discussing her autobiography), nor for something that dealt with her making her own, honest decision. It was a choice she had to share between two girls she didn't even know. Could she really split a reward for the first time ever? On the other hand, she thought, if she didn't count her manicure parties with her bodyguards, she never really knew what it was like to have sisters...  
  
"Don't worry about it, kids."  
  
The three girls then looked over at the desk, surprised to see Bosley open his mouth at a stressful time like this.  
  
"Really," he continued, casually. "This is the best experience you'll ever have."  
  
Ruth and Carrie nodded their heads instantly, while Madison's took a second too long.  
  
"You girls might learn to like each other, after a year or so," Ruth encouraged wholeheartedly. "Trust me, it's all worth it. The travelling, going undercover, it's what I always wanted to do."  
  
"We once scuba-dived with deadly manta rays to spy on this Russian submarine that was lurking near the West Indies, and I used to hate water!" Carrie described, with the familiar excitement of a certain teenager.  
  
Natalie smiled her toothy smile and revealed her shiny retainer to everyone. There seemed to be nothing to lose, so she raised herself up from the couch and looked at Dylan, then Alex.  
  
"Well, I think we can do this! What do you say, Alex?" She seemed all right with the tension that was going on between Alex and Dylan, but it was all up to them now.  
  
Alex glared over at Dylan for a moment, remembering her previous fight with her. She remembered how her first look at Natalie gave her no doubt that she could take her blindfolded, but Dylan was more of the challenge.  
  
So this punk took a few Karate 101 classes, Alex thought, big deal. She could easily jab her way around that.  
  
But then Charlie's words echoed in her head, and she sighed; 'this is not a one-woman show.' She felt she had already broken that code of honor without even trying, so how could she possibly survive ten years with that conceited sense of herself? That was one question of many going through her head, and for once, she wanted to be around girls her own age. Surely, she could try and fix that competitive self and just have fun, maybe even like the girls. So really, what was there to lose?  
  
"I am in too," Alex forced a smile to compete with Natalie's, but then realized her error and just let her lips relax.  
  
So all heads turned towards Dylan then, who was chewing as loud as she possibly could to hide the strain. Great, she thought, now it's all up to me.  
  
"You know," she chewed, holding out her invitation, "if it wasn't for this stupid postcard, I'd be living it big in Vegas with my brothers right about now."  
  
Natalie quickly know that wasn't entirely true, since Dylan didn't even look past the age of gambling. Maybe her brothers forced her to come here, as a reasonable excuse to get rid of her, but Natalie didn't want to say anything.  
  
Those knuckles looked way too sharp.  
  
"But you decided to come here," Natalie cheerfully proposed. "I mean, that's gotta count for something, right?"  
  
The scrawny blonde pushed her glasses up and looked deeply into the bleach- haired punk's eyes, as if trying to find her soul, and Dylan just raised an eyebrow. She looked away, and noticed everyone else was doing the same.  
  
"Hmm? Come on, are you in this with us or what?" Natalie asked her, about half-a-foot away from Dylan's face, her blue eyes blooming.  
  
Dylan sighed, because she didn't feel like punching this psycho in the face.  
  
"Whatever."  
  
And there was a huge yelping of praise and joy from Natalie at the very next second, jumping around her couch like she'd just won the Big Game lottery.  
  
"SECRET AGENT! SECRET AGENT!! I'M GONNA BE A SECRET AGENT!!" she sang to herself, but her voice was so loud that everybody else was covering their ears.  
  
Dylan and Alex looked at each other, with disbelief, not because they'd have to deal with each other, but they weren't sure if this crazy cheerleader was ever going to calm down.  
  
If there was ever a time when these girls had second thoughts about what they were getting into, it was right then and there. Right as Natalie jumped off the couch in a dive (and was lucky enough to be caught by Bosley himself).  
  
"Oookay, enough with the cheer, but now it's down to business," Madison came up and looked at each one of the girls as they regained themselves of that crazy scenario.  
  
"I'll be honest with you, all right? Smart, beautiful, defensive...that's not even half the loot of being an Angel."  
  
The tall brunette looked at her teammates for support, and Ruth spoke up.  
  
"She's right, ladies. I mean, it's no doubt you are all really talented already, but we're here to train you on every aspect there is to being a Secret Agent for Charlie. And that's a mouthful."  
  
Bosley was tapping something onto his cellular phone then, and looked up at all the girls.  
  
"Okay, ladies. So are we ready to take this to Day 1 or what?"  
  
"ALWAYS!!" The former Angels cheered in unison, if not involuntarily.  
  
The Angels-to-be exchanged odd glances with one another. Everyone except Dylan had either laughed or smiled (she was too busy chewing her gum and asking herself what she had just gotten into.)  
  
By the end of the meeting inside that office room, the Angels learned how their training days were to be structured. Fridays, between school classes, they had a Morning C++ Programming Class, an Afternoon Run, to end with an Evening International Dining Etiquette course.... it sounded no different than Military School, really, and for some reason Alex didn't think slightly of this.  
  
They were carefully told how to break this news to their parents, saying that they were accepted into this prestigious academy for Math Whizzes, and that was the first moment when Dylan laughed at her fullest. They could only go home on the second weekend of each month, including holidays and such, and absolutely no visiting allowed (because 'it would distract students from calculating seventeen-digit prime numbers in their heads').  
  
The girls were to share a room in this place called Heaven's Bliss (which looked like an undercover Holiday Inn for any of Charlie's business-related things) and they would go to a regular public school by the names of their first and semi-middle: Natalie Cook, Alex Munday, and Dylan Sanders.  
  
Yes, they still had their math exams like all High School freshmen, and Natalie was not dreading that driving test so much anymore.  
  
To her, at least, this all seemed like a huge after-school project - something to look forward to. As she went to sleep on that first day as a Pre-Angel, she couldn't stop thinking about scuba-diving with deadly manta rays, for some odd reason.  
  
But what she failed to realize (behind her loud tossing and giggling) was that the two biggest challenges of her job were glaring at her right in the face.  
  
*to be continued* 


End file.
